many delightful weeks skippy spent after he was up and around. day after day, he and big joe roamed the length and breadth of the river, and often they went down the bay and across to some unfrequented beach where they swam and fished to their hearts’ content.
skippy soon showed the effects of his healthful life and mrs. duffy’s fine cooking. he was browned from head to foot and his flat chest had expanded two inches. and what was more, he had learned to triumph over tears.
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that in itself was a great achievement, for he had great need to practice self-control during the fall and the winter following. the gods themselves seemed to have cast sorrowful glances over the minnie m. baxter and skippy’s mettle was tried to the breaking point sometimes, yet always he came up smiling. very often it was a poignant smile, the kind that pierced big joe tully’s almost invulnerable heart and set him to doing all sorts of extravagant things so that he might see the pain effaced from the boy’s face and hear him laugh happily.
that was why on the evening of toby’s retrial, big joe left the shanty of the minnie m. baxter in awkward haste. he had left skippy smiling a smile so poignant that he could bear it no longer.
“big joe,” the boy said when they were dawdling over the most luxurious meal that tully’s money could buy, “it was most like throwin’ money away, huh? they don’t wanta let pop get out, i guess. they can’t find the man that really did it and they’ve gotta have somebody so i s’pose they think it might’s well be my pop. now he will be in for life on account of the way they tripped him up in his answers. gee, how could he remember word for word what he said at his first trial? people don’t remember word for word ’bout things like that. poor pop was so nervous i got chills down my back.”
“don’t ye be gettin’ down, kid,” tully protested; “’tis not sayin’ we’re licked till they turn down an appeal. we got some more dough.”
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“so much money,” said skippy with a note of wonder in his high-pitched voice. “gee, big joe, you’ve spent so much on pop an’ me already. now you wanta spend the last you got! gee whiz, i can’t let you—i can’t! much as i wanta see pop free. it ain’t fair lettin’ you spend all your hard-earned money....”
tully had long since learned that he could not lie to skippy.
“sure an’ this last coin ain’t hard-earned, kid,” he said not a little abashed. “so ye see ’cause it ain’t, it might’s well be used for springin’ your old man.”
“all right, if you say it like that,” said skippy with a slightly reproving smile. suddenly he squared his shoulders; then: “anyway, next to pop, big joe, i like you best. gee, ain’t you been just like pop even! so i don’t care if that money’s not so straight, but d’ye think it’ll be lucky for pop? sometimes i wonder if crooked money ain’t hard luck in the end. maybe when you’re broke you can start over clean?”
“we’ll see what the breaks’ll be bringin’ this winter, kid,” big joe had mumbled. “we’ll see, so we will.”
and it was skippy’s answering smile that drove big joe off the barge for a few hours. when he returned late in the evening, he had a fluffy sort of bundle in his big arms and an expansive smile on his face.
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“three guesses what’s in me arms,” he said with a mischievous wink, standing half in and half out of the doorway.
“is it dead or alive?” skippy asked chuckling.
“’tis the liveliest little guy ye ever see.” big joe stooped over and released the fluffy bundle from his arms and presently an airedale pup put its four young and rather unsteady legs on the shanty floor.
skippy laughed out loud. he twisted his hands together in a gesture of delight, then got to his knees and coaxed the puppy to him.
“it’s got brown eyes like a reg’lar angel,” he said.
“an’ brown legs like the divil,” big joe laughed; “the divil for runnin’ into mischief. the man what i bought him from said he was a son-of-a-sufferin’ swordfish for runnin’ an’ chewin’. but he’ll be gettin’ better as he gets older, so he will. ain’t he got the cute little mug though, kid!”
skippy looked up with shining eyes, then drew the puppy up to him.
“big joe, that’s his name—it’s a swell name for him! mug—mugs, huh? with that funny little face he couldn’t be called anything else.”
“sure, sure, kid. anythin’ ye say. mugs it’ll be, so ’twill.” he coughed. “and will he be makin’ ye happy now, kid?”
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“happy! big joe, mugs’ll make me happy ’cause you bought him to make me laugh. gee, gee....” skippy swallowed his emotion. “what for do you do so much, big joe?” he asked na?vely. “gee—why?”
“’cause ye be such a nice kid, so ye be,” the man answered, rumpling skippy’s straight hair. “ye kind o’ get under a guy’s skin—ye do that. ye seem to be needin’ somebody for to look after ye, so ye do, an’ with toby not about it might’s well be me.” he laughed nervously. “besides i ain’t got nobody else at all, at all, kid, an’ even a tough guy like me does be needin’ company, so he does.”
skippy hugged the puppy gratefully and he was so overwhelmed by tully’s generosity that he could not speak. never, he thought, did a boy have a friend like big joe!
his cup of happiness would have been filled to the brim and his father been released that day. but here again, big joe, like an angel of mercy, was making a last supreme effort to bring his father back to him. it seemed impossible that such gigantic effort could fail to bring a joyous result and he told tully so.
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“an’ when pop gets out,” he said in conclusion, “i bet he’ll never forget what you’ve done an’ all, big joe. even now he don’t forget it. he said it’s so gloomy and strict in prison that he’s sad all the time, ’specially ’cause he was so used to roamin’ all over the river free. gee, he said the feller what really killed mr. flint was a coward ’cause he must know how it’s keepin’ pop an’ me away from each other an’ he said he could almost kill him for doin’ that alone.”
“there, now, the ould man’ll be gettin’ out!” said tully vehemently. “my last grand’ll do it, i be tellin’ ye! see if it don’t! now ye ain’t goin’ to start worryin’ all over ’bout toby now, are ye? an’ me gettin’ ye mugs so’s to make it aisier like for ye.”
skippy looked at the puppy sliding over the floor on his gawky legs. he laughed.
“mugs makes up for an awful lot, big joe, but nobody could make up for pop,” he said wistfully. “i never told pop, ’cause he’d think it sounded silly, but i love him. you know, like i guess girls feel only they show it an’ talk about it, but i don’t. i couldn’t. but i’m just tellin’ you like a secret—see? i get a funny pain in my heart when i’m not seein’ pop an’ it gets awful bad when i think maybe he won’t ever get out of prison.” then at the sight of big joe’s frowning countenance, he added: “but it’s like i said, big joe, i like you almost as much as pop. an’ now you’ve bought me mugs—gee, how much’d you pay for him, huh?”
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“’tis nothin’,” said big joe smiling softly; “a coupla bucks. ’course, they cost a little more thin just muts, but the man at the dog place said thim airedales be great for protectin’ kids so i think maybe he’d be good for ye nights when i might be out with the boys. he’ll be comp’ny anyways.”
a little later, when big joe was having a good-night smoke alone on the deck, he took out of his pocket a piece of paper, and in the light gleaming from the cabin windows he glanced at it curiously. it was a receipt for one airedale puppy; price, one hundred and fifty dollars.
he smiled, shrugged his powerful shoulders and tearing the paper into bits let it drop in the inlet. then he turned his trousers’ pockets outward and laughed ruefully.
“broke,” he said half aloud. “sure and ’tis aisy come, aisy go. and now for to be gettin’ some more dough. the kid’ll be needin’ it so——” he shrugged as if getting money was the least of his troubles.
